Less Homework Revolution

Todays ripple was inspired by a segment on the Today Show (NBC) this morning.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28624181/

For me modern public education generates a HUGE ripple, and frankly, not a very pretty one. This is why the piece on Today was inspiring to me, and has potential to make a view small ripples in a positive direction. Basically the idea is to set appropriate homework levels based on the age/grade of the child. Ten minutes per grade was the recommendation I heard. This was followed up with the reasoning behind it which included such things as student motivation, stress reduction, lack of training to teachers on a uniform standard for dispensing homework.

As I listened I thought of my daughters 2nd grade teacher. We were at a new school and the first day my daughter came home with a 10 page homework packet. To be fair this was for the whole week, however, there were multiple subjects covered within this packet, each with a daily requirement. That first night we spent a good 5 hours working on just 2 of the 4 sections required for the first day. Now for some children, each segment could potentially be done in 15 minutes (which still would come to 2 hours of homework). But my daughter did not understand any of the assignments, and did not understand my explanation, either. (Some may be familiar with this refrain, "That's not how Mrs. X said to do it") So after a grueling 5 hrs I decided to let the teacher see her errors so that she could be familiar with how my daughter is understanding the material. I also noted the time we'd spent on the homework, and my observations (that she did not have a basic understanding of the task).

The following day the prior days homework was sent home with a note from the teacher "Please ensure that all the questions are answered correctly before returning to school"

HUH?

How is she going to know where my child struggles, if I tell her all the correct answers on her homework? What was the point of having a teacher if the teacher was not teaching the material, but instead sending it home to have the parent teach the material? And did she not notice the point I made that her "incorrect and unfinished" homework took us 5 hours. My daughter was 7, not 17. And as the guests pointed out in the Today Show segment, the ripple was in true form--my daughter HATED school, was highly stressed and developing anxiety issues.

Solution? Or should I say potential solution?

Revamp of the entire educational system. Ok, if I can only eat an elephant one bite at a time, than a simple and reasonable homework guideline is a good start.